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As Sarah Jones at Politicususa rightfully noted, this is pretty rich coming from today's Republican party: The Party of Hotheads Cheney and McCain is Concerned About Hagel’s Temperament:

On ABC’s This Week, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) concern trolled about the ‘temperament’ of Republican former Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NB), whom Obama has nominated as Secretary of Defense. To back up his concern, Corker referenced possible issues with staffers, “I think there are numbers of staffers who are coming forth now just talking about the way he has dealt with them.” [...]

What staffers? Can he name one of them? Does Corker “think” they are coming forth or have they come forth? And since Hagel’s staffers would have most likely been Republican, it’s possible that such a desperate move might stink to high heaven of a Republican Party agenda, if in fact they ever do “come forth.” But really, since when do staffers weigh in on nominations?

Corker is worried about temperament, and he’s proving that by spreading unfounded rumors from alleged anonymous staffers that may or may not be a figament of his imagination. [...]

The real issue Republicans have with Hagel is that not only has he been to war, unlike most in the chicken hawk party, but he is a two-time recipient of the Purple Heart and he is against a war-first strategy. Hagel warned us before invading Iraq that it is very easy to start a war, and not so easy to end one. Republicans were outraged at Hagel for suggesting such a fact.

I never thought I’d see the day when a modern day Republican suggested that temperament should be an issue. After all, this is the party of distemper. This is the party that allegedly can’t control its members from shouting insults during a State of the Union address. This is the party that lied us into war and ran Sarah Palin as a Vice President.

It’s ironic that the party of irascible hotheads Dick Cheney and John McCain is concerned about Hagel’s temperament, because if they had listened to him, we never would have invaded Iraq. Hagel’s temperament is actually an argument for his confirmation.

I'm wondering when Corker has ever expressed any concern for this guy's temperament?

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Transcript via below the fold.

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Sadly it seems MSNBC has found yet another former Pennsylvania Democrat to come on the air to advocate for rewarding Republicans for their obstruction and intransigence over the last four years. We were already treated to "Fix the Debt" corporate shill Ed Rendell arguing for cutting benefits to our seniors with the chained CPI as way to figure the cost of living increases for Social Security and for raising the age for Medicare eligibility. And in a subsequent interview, he was not only pushing to cut our social safety nets, but to help get more Republicans elected to office as well.

This Saturday, former Rep. Joe Sestak took up Rendell's mantle and recommended that President Obama nominate former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for transportation secretary. I probably would not be as irritated at Sestak for this interview had I not heard him earlier this week talking about how reasonable cutting the benefits to our seniors would be and that Democrats are going to have to give into the idea that this chained CPI is coming and there's nothing they can do about it if we want to fix our deficit problems. Never mind that Social Security does not add a dime to our deficit. He did the same thing a little later in this segment but wasn't quite as specific as he'd been in the previous interview on which cuts are going to have to be made to our social safety nets.

Sestak took to the air here to call for more privatization of our infrastructure and nominating a Republican who could get that passed as the solution to fixing our crumbling roads and bridges. It makes me start to wonder if anyone besides MSNBC is signing a paycheck for him just like they are for Ed Rendell, because these sure as hell aren't positions Democrats who don't want to have themselves considered as Republican-lite should be advocating for.

As long as we've got Democrats like Rendell and Sestak shilling for Republicans and their policies on that so-called "liberal" network MSNBC, who needs Republicans?

January 13, 2009 MSNBC

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Katrina Vanden Heuvel responds to David Shuster's questions about those on the left with concerns about Barack Obama's cabinet appointments. Vanden Heuvel points out that leaders in the past like FDR were centrists who were moved to govern as progressives because the times demanded it and feels the same may end up being true of Obama. When asked to respond to Steve Hildebrand's remarks I think she is right on the mark with this response:

Well I think tone is half of life and there was a tone in there like, don't speak up and what this country is about and what Obama's campaign and the moment, the movement around his campaign was about respect and power and include. That was his mantra. And it was bringing people and their voices into a system. This is a former community organizer. He is the first community organizer in the White House and he talked about change from below, fighting for change from below.

Hildebrand isn't on the right page. He didn't need to say that. And you know the left's progressives, I think, you know we need to get beyond the labels. As I, centrism today David has been redefined. Centrism today is about improving the conditions of people's lives through massive government intervention and stimulus and showing that government can do that.

She's correct and the center has shifted to the left despite the best attempts by the media to continually paint the United States as a center-right nation. I also agree that Hildebrand is not on the right page, even though he is correct that it is not fair to criticize Obama too harshly before he's had a day in office. But I'll also take a page from David Sirota on this one:

First thing's first: I absolutely agree with Hildebrand that you can't draw concrete conclusions about Obama based only on his personnel decisions -- and I've written that repeatedly (and I've also said that most of Obama's policy declarations have been pretty progressive). However, Hildebrand implying that those personnel decisions really don't matter at all is straight up silly. It supposes that all the enormous egos that populate a White House are just mindless functionaries, and that even though those egos are heading major federal departments or are key advisers, they have no hand in making policy and/or their advice to a president makes absolutely no impact. Please -- let's get real.

But far more important than that is Hildebrand firing up the whaaaaaaaambulance to whine and cry and moan about "the left." Really, what is with top Democrats explicitly attacking "the left wing of the Democratic Party" in Fox News-style talking points? Why is every substantive, non-partisan, non-ideological question of pragmatism from progressives almost automatically portrayed as some sort of super-Trotsky-ite, ideological and wholly inappropriate demand for Obama to be a president "just for those on the left?" Can anyone even ask a non-ideological question of Obama without being attacked as some sort of raving left-wing lunatic?

[...]

Are such questions really the inappropriate queries of a bunch of radical revolutionaries from "the left?" Or are the real fringe radicals -- the real ideologues -- those who say that we should all STFU and bow down to the Dear Leader? I think the latter, not the former -- and I think Democrats (and especially the Obama team) who rightly protested Republican efforts to tar and feather Obama as a "socialist" should know better than to echo such silly, fact-free talking points.